Something SpecialChapter 1

“Cornelia, how long will you be here?”
“A while,” she answered over her shoulder, and without another word stepped inside of the house.

Something SpecialChapter 1Welcome to the Friendly City

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The high pitched screech of metal rubbing against metal followed by the pneumatic hiss of air, caught under pressure, being finally released awakened the girl as the train pulled to a halt. Cornelia looked out from her window seat and wondered, again, how she would survive her month-long stay in Montego Bay.She idled as the other passengers made their way out of the carriage. There were only three other persons. One was a nervous looking man who was standing at the door even before the train stopped; then when it did, he reached through the window of the door to open it from the outside, as it was designed without an inside handle and bounded out carrying a guitar case. The other two passengers were an elderly couple. The man got up and looked around him in disgust.

“The condition of the rail system is really a disgrace, Liz.”He gestured at the stuffing that was bulging through rips in the upholstery, the brokencarriage windows and outside at the cracked concrete landing and the state of the station house that was bordering on dilapidation. He looked at Cornelia, satisfied to find new ears to hear his complaining. His wife pursed her lips and shook her head.“Young lady”, he said, “You couldn’t imagine what it was like when we came here together for the first time. We were proud to take the train from Port Antonio to Kingston for our honeymoon and we liked the experience so much, that the next day we were in Montego Bay. Well, unless the Government does something drastic to improve the system, this will be my last train ride.”

Cornelia felt uncomfortable from the point when he addressed her as, “Young lady.” That kind of talk irritated her, it was loaded with rules and expected standards of behaviour and she did not want to be complicit in it. It was people who used terms like that who she deliberately tried to upset. If she was not overwhelmed with her own situation at the moment, she would have said something to irritate the couple.

She slung two bags over her shoulders and dragged her suitcase along the narrow corridor to the door. Even before she alighted, a man took up her suitcase and placed it on a handcart, and then she saw her aunt Josie standing beside it.

The feeling of slight shock never went away when she saw her mother's identical twin. Even though they were both now in their early 40s, it was easy to mistake one from the other, and Cornelia could have been forgiven for thinking that it was her mother standing there. The two sisters had the same very conservative puritan lifestyle. Today, her aunt was in a straight midi floral skirt and a white polo short and sensible flat shoes. She wore a straw beret on her head.

“Hello Aunt Josie”, Cornelia said softly and leaned down to give the woman a hug. Her Aunt leaned slightly to accepted it without returning it, then straightened her clothing and spoke.“Is what you doing with so much things and is just a month you staying. Anyway, come-on, if we hurry we can still make it to bible study this evening.”

She nodded to the handcart man, then turned and strode away, expecting them both to follow her trail. Cornelia, tall for her fifteen years and in good physical condition from being on her school and community netball teams, still found it hard to keep up with her short, buxom Aunt as they made their way across streets busy with motor vehicles and push carts loaded with the ground provisions, fruits and vegetables of farmers and higglers preparing for the weekend market.

At one point, Cornelia was almost running in order to keep up, and used her aunt's brightly coloured skirt as a beacon that appeared and disappeared in the crowd. Close on the heels of Aunt was the handcart man who somehow managed to maintain a good speed. His cart was neatly constructed but unpainted except for the charge that it carried, ‘Seek after God’ in bright red lettering.

They got to the taxi stand, and soon cleared the congested streets and climbed one of the steep hills around the city to gain a short cul de sac that contained six small houses. Aunt stopped in front of house number four. It was immaculately white and sat primly behind a neatly clipped privet hedge that was divided by a short walkway bordered on either side by tiny squares of manicured grass. Cornelia felt even more depressed at this manifestation of order and restriction. After the flurry of settling her things into the bedroom that she was going to share with her Aunt’s son, Cornelia turned the bedroom door - she could not dare shut it - and still wearing her shoes, lay on the bed and sighed.

Montego Bay, and more specifically Aunt Josie’s house, was to be her detention centre for most of the summer holidays. Cornelia had pre-warned all of her friends that her excursions with them had to be in secret if her parents were to continue to trust her to go out without supervision. She made friends online, meeting a few who followed an Instagram pranking channel. Some of those friendships came offline if they discovered that they were living within the city. A group of them started meeting up at the cinema, for ice-cream and even for a study session or two at the public gardens— all activities unknown by her parents, and by their standards, outlawed. This could have gone on indefinitely as Cornelia became an expert at finding excuses to be out by herself; but she pushed her good fortune too far when she followed a night out at a church event with a stage show.

Cornelia recalled the details, and then snickered to herself. She had enjoyed herself so much that it was almost worth her current exile.

A stage show with popular artistes was at the National Stadium parking lot, the older members of the crew were going, and Cornelia was determined not to miss it. Diego, who was arranging the tickets and transportation was a bit hesitant at first, but she convinced him that if she got home from a legitimate church event at around midnight, it was going to be easier to slip out of the house.

“This is not like getting home at eight-o-clock Lia,”“Mark, trus’ me. Crusade finish late, late, so Mummy not going to expect me before midnight and I have everything planned; so you just make sure that the music is good!That evening her plans proceeded smoothly. Cornelia did go to the crusade, and at about 8:30p.m., left with Evangelist Fairview, a family friend. In truth, Evangelist Fairview drove her straight home to Maverley and drove away after seeing Cornelia wave to her from behind the closed gate. As soon as the woman’s car disappeared around a corner, Cornelia unlocked the grille and door, leaving them unlocked, went inside and said goodnight to her parents who were already in bed watching the television. Her brother and sister were sleeping, then after a few minutes, she quietly slipped back out, clicking only the grille padlock only behind her, and stole away in the opposite direction to Molynes Road and easily hailed a taxi that took her to the show in Cherry Garden. By pre-arrangement, her friend Marissa had packed an outfit for her. So a quick visit to the bathroom enabled a change from a long sleeved, self-belted, granny print cotton dress, into black tights and a red v-necked t shirt. She had kept-on her low heeled sandals as she was taller than most of the boys at the party anyway. Looking at herself in the full-length bathroom mirror, Cornelia appreciated how much her body was changing, and thought that it looked good. The clothes revealed a well-toned body that was round in all the right places. She especially liked how she looked from the back. If she could change anything, it would be her hair. It was unprocessed and she wore it usually pulled back in a bun or cane rowed. How she would have liked to weave in extensions. She never wore eyeliner as her eyes were already large and round, and when she was animated, stood out like headlights. No mascara in the world could have straightened her curly eyelashes, and she could live with that. Cornelia licked an index finger and used it to smooth down her eyebrows. They were not that unruly, but she believed that it could have benefited from a shave, an act that would have led to questions from her mother. With a brown pencil, she then outlined her upper lip fully and her lower tip just a little within the edge; then she filled in with plum-coloured lipstick. She appreciated how it complemented her dark chocolate skin, then after dusting some face powder on her nose, forehead and chin, she joined the others.

She was thrilled to be out with so many fashionable people looking to be seen, and the entertainers came to please the audience. As they had bought their tickets in a batch, they benefitted from a bucket of products on ice. Diego offered Cornelia a mouthful from his bottle but she declined, she would take her first sip of alcohol later in the summer, not just yet.

It was around one-o-clock when Diego’s mother called him from the parking lot, and he left. Marissa’s big sister came a few minutes later and dropped Cornelia home where the neighbours were congregated in front of her gate, and a police car was parked with lights flashing.

“Oh my God. What happen’!” Cornelia squealed and instantly tears sprang to her eyes as awful thoughts about criminals attacking her family leapt into her mind. She ran from the car into the yard where her mother was leaning on the grille wailing and holding her belly.“Mom, Mom, is what happen?”Her mother grabbed her in disbelief and hugged her tightly.“Lia, dem hurt you? Oh my daughter, praise God that you got away safely. Eddy look, Lia come back!”As she rested in her mother’s arms Cornelia became aware of the questioning look in the eyes of the neighbours then saw Evangelist Fairview emerge from the house to join them in the yard.

************************************************************************“But we trusted you. How could you betray that trust?”It was nearly two o’clock in the morning and Cornelia’s younger brother and sister had been set to their beds more than an hour before, but her parents were still grilling her.

The plan had not been flawless. While Cornelia was slipping out of her yard to meet up with friends, Evangelist Lelieth had driven into a deceptively deep pothole and instantly got a flat tyre. She had rimmed the vehicle back to the girl’s house and roused the occupants. Naturally, when her Cornelia was discovered missing her parents called her cell, and when that went unanswered they feared the worst and called the police. They reasoned that their daughter must have been abducted by criminals right there in their front yard before she even got a chance to get to the verandah.Her father continued.

“So, this party you went to you do there?”“Not a party, it was a stage show to listen to some music, Daddy.”“Didn’t you have any food?”“Yes, Daddy.”“And drinks?”“Yes, Daddy.” Her mother butted in.“You drank alcohol, Cornelia?”“No, I had soda!”“No, I had soda.. .what, girl?”“No I had soda, Mother.”“How can we believe you?”

Cornelia considered the question to be beyond what the immediate argument was about. Yes, her parents had a right to be angry that she deceived them, but did that equate to her being a liar? She thought not, and with a steel edge to her voice, said so.

“I said that I was sorry that I made you worry, but that does not mean that I am a liar. I said that I did not have alcohol and that is the truth.”

Those words, the first spoken to her parents in open defiance flung open a new door for her. Half of her had really expected that as she spoke those words, the ground would open up and suck her into a pit where she would be tormented by flesh eating daemons; and when it did not happen, Cornelia quietly revelled in her newly found strength. It would take more than her parents’ disapproval to ever humble her now.

She saw the muscles in her mother’s face relax, yes, relax. Her mother sensed the shift in her daughter’s attitude from being a supplicant to being an imperator, and therefore the way to handle that rising force had to be different. She was not looking at her little daughter to be protected anymore, she was looking at a sly devil to cauterise and expunge.

Her father raised his voice to rebuke her.“Don’t be rude to your mother, girl.”She matched his volume with her own, and strengthened the undertone of steel.“I wasn’t being rude! I am just tired of this cross-questioning. No, I did not have any alcohol tonight. Now can I go to bed?”

“Yes Cornelia go to bed; but this doesn’t end here. Your mother and I have tried to raise all of you in the fear of the Lord, but the devil is working his will in this house. We haveto be careful that your brother and sister don’t get contaminated.”“Daddy, going to a stage show is not the work of the devil.”“I rebuke you! Young girls and boys together in the dark revelling to profane music cannot be a part of God’s will. Go to bed, I am going to pray and we will talk about this tomorrow.’

Cornelia’s mother got up early the next morning and called her sister Josie in Montego Bay.

Two evenings after she had arrived in Montego Bay Cornelia sat in the house with her cousin, who was a toddler. Her aunt was a spinster who had never been married, but who had fostered children for short periods, but a year ago had adopted a baby.

All of Corneila’s time was spent helping with the toddler and now they were together in the house with Aunt Josie to return in another hour. Cornelia did not have a cell phone so had tuned the radio to a dance music station and played it softly. There was no television as Aunt Josie said that it was a way to, “limit the vile immorality that the mind readily absorbs”.

The child was chewing the curtain and a stream of saliva had drained down his chin on to the floor. He was eighteen months old and was still discovering his world through his taste buds. Cornelia got up from where she was seated, removed the curtain from his mouth, picked him up and walked into the yard.It was a hot evening and the sun had already disappeared behind the hill leaving the sky a whitewashed orange behind silhouettes of the nearby buildings, trees and nearby hills. Soon it would darken to grey then night would truly be there. Cornelia imaged that it must be nice down on the beach and wondered if she would ever get to experience sunset down in the bay.

Aunt Josie had told her to go inside and lock the door when night fell, so she had another twenty minutes to play with. She put the boy on the gate pedestal and held him steadily. The street, normally quiet, was deserted at the moment. Most of the people who lived here were retired and spent their days indoors to emerge in the evenings and tend to their gardens out of the heat of the day.

The sound of a faint click caused her to look across the bend in the cul de sac and she was surprised to see a boy about her age bent to shut a gate. When he straightened, he slung a broom over his shoulder and walked towards her. He was dressed in khaki trousers, a polo t-shirt and shod in handmade leather sandals. Although he was short, his limbs were gangly and he had a broad forehead topped with shoulder length sun-bleached dreadlocks. She quickly used his very traditional attire to judge him as not the sort of individual who followed the social media page that interested her. Boys and young men who she knew either dressed in the streetwear designed to look like sports gear or dressed in clothes like their social media heroes. Normally, Cornelia would have adjusted her eyes and ignored him, or even gone inside, but so desperate was she for diversion that she casually maintained her position right up to when he passed her gate.“Good evening”. He said.It was not just a polite acknowledgement of one human being to another, but had an invitation for more discourse. Cornelia, who had started playing with the child just moments before he drew alongside them, returned his greeting without looking at him.“Hello.”“I never see you here before. You related to Miss Josie?”“So you know must know everybody round here?”“Mostly, I always visit my grandfather Missa Sewell”, he tilted his head towards the house where he had just emerged.Cornelia said nothing, but was playfully using her lips to gently pull on the toddler’s fingers, even as he tried to grab her ears. The youth spoke again.

“Like, I remember when Miss Josie got Isaiah. He was only six months old. She was so excited to get the baby that she change-up everything in the house for him. One SaturdayI even help her to paint the baby room.”“Aunt Josie let you into her house?” Cornelia could not hide the surprise in her voice.“Yes, so what?”

She did not answer, but openly looked him up and then down. She knew that she was being rude, but had decided, even while he was closing his grandfather’s gate, that any interaction with him was only to break the afternoon’s boredom, so how she chose to treat him did not matter. Her male friends were all ‘hot’ boys. They spoke well, lived in gated communities or neighbourhoods where you drove around, not walked around your neighbourhood.

He was still waiting on her answer looking openly into her eyes, his chin high and shoulders squared. Cornelia ignored his question, and put one of her own to him.“What is your name?”“I am Janvon Sewell.”“Jan-von!” Cornelia dragged out the sound of it. “What kind of name is that? It means anything?”“Well, what’s yours?”“Cornelia Brandon. I am named after Cornelius, the upright and God fearing centurion in the bible. Janvon ... is it African or something?”“No it is not African. I guess it is Jamaican.”“How can a name be Jamaican?”“It is a combination of Jancelia and Devon my parents’ names.”“Then it’s not a real name.”“Do names have to have a meaning?”“If they are real names, they do.”

Cornelia did not believe that, she invented it to give herself an edge over the boy.

The streetlight on the verge outside of Aunt Josie’s house flickered on and then steadily gained intensity to glow with an orange light; it was one of the older street lights that had not been changed out to the more blue LED bulbs. It was almost dark now, and as Isaiah craned his neck to look upwards at the bulb the teenagers stood in silence; Cornelia waiting contentedly to pounce on any argument that her companion might bring to counteract hers.

“Well, I guess that it means that my parents loved each other and that I was something special to both of them. So my name means something special.”Disappointed at not being able to unsettle him, Cornelia shrugged her shoulders as a sign that she was still unimpressed.“Well, I’m gone inside.”She cradled Isaiah in her arms and backed away from the gate.“Cornelia, how long will you be here?”“A while,” she answered over her shoulder, and without another word stepped inside of the house.